The present invention relates to an improved take-up method and an apparatus adapted to wind onto a take-up reel a taping tape comprising an embossed paper or plastic tape loaded with chip type electronic parts.
The taping tape comprises a storage tape for storing electronic parts therein and a cover tape deposited on the upper surface of the storage tape. For taking up such taping tape, the following means has hitherto been employed. That is, the taping machine which has been operated at the previous step is stopped, the top end of the taping tape is inserted into the groove in the core of the take-up reel by hand and after winding the tape around the reel core by 1 to 2 times, the take-up reel is rotated by the motor. Then, at the final step of taking up the taping tape, the non-deposited portion of the embossed storage tape having no electronic part stored therein and that of the cover tape of the taping tape prepared in advance are drawn out, the drawn out portion of the embossed tape is cut manually leaving the drawn out portion of the cover as an extension serving as a leader of the taping tape and after confirmation of completion of a predetermined amount of windings, the leader of the tape is applied by hand and fixed to the peripheral surface of the outermost winding of the taken up tape by using an adhesive tape, thereby preventing the unwinding of the taping tape.
However, the following defects have been pointed out with respect to the conventional method. That is, the method of inserting the taping tape into the reel core manually takes much time and labor since it requires an operation of handling the tip of the taping tape of narrow width within the small clearance between the side plates of the take-up reel and so the series of steps including the preceding and succeeding steps must be interrupted. Further, as the formation of the leader of the taping tape has been performed manually, the series of steps has also had to be interrupted here. Thus, upon completion of winding of the taping tape by a predetermined amount, the rear end of the tape is fixed to the peripheral surface of the taken up portion of the tape also manually by using an adhesive tape but all these manual operations require interruption of the series of steps resulting in increasing cost so that it has been strongly desired to reduce these steps.